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ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the politics of India’s nationalising policies towards the ‘region’ called the ‘north-eastern region’ in general, and Manipur in particular, of the post-colonial Indian state. Such policies are informed by a two-pronged strategy, the first by militarism and the second by what I identify as developmentalism. This strategy stresses the unilateral nature of India’s nation-building projects, and how it has deliberately or inadvertently brought dissatisfaction among the native population when they have unmasked the disruptive substance of nation-building approach to this hinterland.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Daniele Conversi, Dr Homen Th. and Mr Newton for their thought provoking and positive counter arguments on the earlier version of this article. Comments from two anonymous reviewers were highly enriching. The author is also grateful to the European Commission (EU) for funding his PhD programme in Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain (under Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Lot Window 13), during which much of the work of this article was done.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The sixteenth Lok Sabha election was successfully conducted in May 2014 and is the latest to date.
2. ‘India ranks 38 in Index of Democracy’ (The Firstpost, 30 April 2013).
3. India’s National Integration Day has been observed every year on 31 October (since the assassination of India’s former Prime Minister, Smt. Indira Gandhi in 1984).
4. ‘What it costs to keep Hindi alive? Rs 36 crore’ (The Times of India, 5 December 2009).
5. Narayan, Nation Building, 406.
6. Brubaker, ‘National Minorities,’ 107–132; and Kuzio, ‘Nationalising states,’ 135–154.
7. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication; and Connor, ‘Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?’ 319–355.
8. Hassan, ‘Explaining Manipur’s Breakdown,’ 1–31.
9. Baruah, Durable Disorder, 35.
10. See above 5, 326.
11. See above 9, 37.
12. Geiger, Frontier Encounter, 8.
13. India’s north-east region comprises seven federal states: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It hosts about 250 different ethnic tribal communities – i.e. almost half of all of India’s tribal communities. This makes India’s north-east one of the most ethnically and culturally heterogeneous areas in Asia.
14. Ahmed, ‘The Making of India’s Northeast,’ 133–158.
15. To date, the Governors in all the eight north-eastern states of India have come from military/police force backgrounds. See Baruah, ‘Generals as Governors,’ 59–82; and Baruah, Durable Disorder.
16. India under the British rule was divided into two forms of administration. One was British India and the other was native states of India subordinated to British paramountcy. See Kabui, ‘Colonial Policy and Practice in Manipur’.
17. Chandhoke, A State of One’s Own.
18. The draft Merger Agreement, in which the Maharaja of Manipur signed, has several provisions in favour of the people of Manipur. It was reportedly omitted from the final version, which includes safeguarding the priority of Manipuris in government employment within the state, restriction of immigrants from India, and control of imports and exports by the native, among other things. See United Committee Manipur, Influx of Migrants into Manipur, 11–17.
19. see note 17 above, 15.
20. By the late nineteenth century, Manipur was rocked by a series of democratic movements in opposition to the monarchy system and demanded democracy and representative government. On 12 December 1946, the Maharaja of Manipur finally gave in to pressure and set up a committee to prepare a new constitution for the state. The same was submitted to the Maharaja on 27 June 1947 and the Manipur State Constitution Act finally came into force in 1948. With the enforcement of the 1948 Manipur State Election Rules, Manipur became the first state in India to hold elections on the basis of universal adult franchise in June 1948.
21. United Committee Manipur, Influx of Migrants into Manipur, 153–155.
22. One should not confuse this with the Naga movement that was founded contemporaneously with Irabot’s movement. The first Naga independentist movement – the Naga National Council – was formed in 1946 in and around Kohima and Makokchung towns of Naga Hills. Parrat, Wounded Land.
23. The Revolutionary Government of Manipur no longer exists today. It dwindled sharply by the end of 1970 and has become defunct since then.
24. Manipur was also known as Kangleipak in pre-historic times.
25. The people of Manipur remembered 15 October of every year as a ‘Black Day’ in commemoration of that forceful merger incident.
26. ‘Is there any Brigadier in Shillong?’ was the response from the former Deputy Prime Minister Shri Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, when the then Governor of Assam (also Political Agent of the Centre for Manipur) reported to Shri. Patel that the people of Manipur were reluctant to merge with the Indian Union. See Parrat, Wounded Land, 115.
27. Rustomji, Enchanted Frontiers, 109.
28. Hanjabam, ‘The Meitei upsurge in Manipur,’ 157–169; and Robinson, ‘The Rhizomes of Manipur,’ para 21.
29. ‘Passing out parade’ (The Hueiyen News Service, 13 June 2014).
30. Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee recommended for complete repeal of the Act in 2005. The Indian Government, on the other hand, is neither ready to publish the report publicly nor tabled the issue in the parliament.
31. ‘Army’s stand makes it hard to amend AFSPA’ (The Hindu, 7 February 2013.
32. Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery.
33. The Government of India prepares a budgetary allocation for all the security forces every financial year. The Assam Rifle Units that are mostly deployed in the north-east and Manipur in particular have a sum of Rs 3580 crore – i.e. 35.80 billions of Rupees, allocated for the year of 2014. See Marathumpilly, ‘The Rot In The Assam Rifles’.
34. North-east India is the only region that has a separate ministry for economic development.
35. ‘Misguided youth’ has become a rhetoric term, often used by the political elites to persuade the people of north-east. See ‘Surrendered Northeast militants to get grant of Rs. 4 lakh, monthly 6,000’ (The Hindustan Times, 23 April 2018).
36. See above 32.
37. With the exception of Assam, no other states in the north-east have large-scale industry.
38. India’s north-east has been designated as a ‘special category’ region and has been receiving a huge amount of lapsable as well as non-lapsable monetary assistance from the centre. The North Eastern Council receives 90% of the plan assistance as a grant and 10% as a loan, while other Indian states receive only 30% as a grant and 70% as loan. See Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery, 232.
39. ‘Migranst insecure after rebel qroup’s “quit notice”’ (The Times of India, 8 September 2012).
40. Yumnam, ‘Oil Exploration’ (E-pao, 2 September 2012); and Yumnam, ‘High Tipaimukh dam’ (The Imphal Free Press, 4 September 2012). Kymlicka and He, Multiculturalism in Asia.
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Ningthoujam Rameshchandra
Ningthoujam Rameshchandra is an ICSSR PDF Researcher at the Department of Economics, Sikkim University, Tadong 737102, India. His research interest areas include armed conflict, migration, development, nationalism, among others.